TO _drift with every passion till my soul_
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play_,
Is it for this that I have given away_
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control_?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll_
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday_
With idle songs for pipe and virelay_,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole_.
Surely there was a time I might have trod_
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance_
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God_:
Is that time dead_? _lo_! _with a little rod_
I did but touch the honey of romance_—
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance_?
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play_,
Is it for this that I have given away_
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control_?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll_
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday_
With idle songs for pipe and virelay_,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole_.
Surely there was a time I might have trod_
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance_
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God_:
Is that time dead_? _lo_! _with a little rod_
I did but touch the honey of romance_—
And must I lose a soul’s inheritance_?